Athens Railway Museum

James Waite writes:

The Athens Railway Museum is housed in the old wagon works of ΣΠAΠ, the Peloponnese Railways at 4 Siokou Street, alongside the railway line to the north of the city centre. It origins lie in the enthusiasm of Mr. Christodoulos Christodoulou, a former chief engineer of OSE, the Greek national railway organisation. It opened in 1979 and Mr. Christodoulou became its first director. The museum is still run by OSE.

It’s a delightful place to visit. Most of the large exhibits are beautifully restored and are housed in a small hall, well lit by natural light. There’s a smaller entrance hall which houses a number of hand operated pw trolleys, mostly metre gauge though there’s also a 600mm gauge one from the Mount Pelion railway in the north of the country.

There are five metre gauge locos in the main hall all of which served ΣΠAΠ for at least a part of their careers. They are:

A class 0-4-0T no. 4 “Tιρυνς” (“Tiryns”) (Krauss 1370/1883) was acquired for construction work on the first parts of the system to be built and is the oldest loco surviving in the country.

0-6-0T "Mεσσολογγιον" ("Messologgion") (Couillet 930/1888) was A class no.5 of the Σιδηροδρόμων Bορειοδυτικης Ελλάδος ("ΣBΔΕ"), the Greek North Western Railway which operated a small isolated system on the north side of the Gulf of Patraikos based on the town of Messologhi and which became part of ΣΠAΠ in 1953. The line was closed in 1970 and partially dismantled. It was reconstructed over a long period starting in 1996 but although the work was more or less completed the line has never reopened. "Mεσσολογγιον" has a twin sister "Tρικουπις" ("Trikoupis") (Couillet 932/1888) which is preserved at Messologhi, a town of considerable significance to the Greeks as it was the centre of the first uprising in the Greek war of independence in the 1820's. It was also the town where Lord Byron landed in Greece in 1824 to help in the independence struggle and where he died shortly afterwards.

C class 2-6-0T no. 211 (Couillet 953/1890) built originally for the Myli-Kalamata Railway, one of ΣΠAΠ’s constituents.

Zs class 2-6-0T no. 7505 “Ερυμανθος” (“Erymanthos”) (SACM Graffenstaden 4373/1892) one of the earliest of the forty five locos of this class, ΣΠAΠ’s most numerous type of which no fewer than twelve survive spread across the south of the country.

Bs class 2-4-0T no. 151 (Henschel 11132/1912) which spent much of its life working on the Pyrgos-Kyparissas line on the west coast of the Peloponnese.

A sixth loco with ΣΠAΠ associations is 2-6-0RT no. 4, later no. 8004, (Cail 2518/1899) from the 750mm gauge Diakofto-Kalavryta rack railway which was built by an Italian company but worked by ΣΠAΠ from its opening in 1896. All six of the lines steam locos survive. No’s. 2 (8002), 5 (8005) and 6 (8011) are in open storage at Diakofto station (and securely surrounded by a high steel mesh fence which prevents effective photography) and no. 3 (8003) is plinthed nearby. No. 1 (8001) was restored to working order in 1996 but sadly suffered severe boiler damage a few years ago as a result of incorrect operation and is now locked up in Kalavryta engine shed.

There’s one standard gauge loco in the main hall, Ea class 2-6-0T no. 204. It owes its survival to being converted into a non-powered snowplough after its withdrawal from active service, something which involved the removal of its cylinders, and it’s now displayed in this condition.

Also on display in the main hall are a carriage from the Kalavryta line which is coupled to no. 4, a standard gauge electric tramcar from the Piraeus Harbour Tramway, a royal saloon built in 1888 for the Athens-Piraeus Railway and an amazingly ornate 4-wheeled open saloon built in France around 1852 as a gift by the the French Queen to the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I. The vehicle was captured by the Greek army during the First Balkan War in 1913. It makes an interesting comparison with the equally ornate saloon built by the Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Co. in Birmingham in the mid-1860's for his brother Abdülaziz I who succeeded him as sultan in 1861 and which is preserved at the Rahmi M Koç museum in Istanbul.

Outside and squeezed between the building and the main line railway (and easily missed) are two 0-4-0T’s, OK 1339/1904 and Jung 4665/1929, and one small diesel from the 600mm gauge Righeon-Eretria mineral railway in Thessaly.

There are also two further electric vehicles stored at the back of the building but we were not able to visit them.

This is an excellent museum and well worth a visit. One problem is that photography is not generally allowed – a problem with many of the country’s museums this – and it’s worth seeking permission in advance if photography is important to you. The museum is open mornings only except on Mondays when it’s closed altogether. There’s a Wednesday evening opening advertised on some websites but not on others. Admission is free – please spend a little money on the postcards or souvenirs on offer in the small shop to help defray expenses – and also appreciative comments in the visitors book will no doubt be welcomed.

These pictures show some of the non-steam locomotive stock referred to above: